The Man in the Long Black Coat
by Frackers
Summary: Oneshot Re-Imagining/ Sarah's older sister, Sharon has returned to their small hometown to investigate the disappearance of her sister. She finds implications worse than she ever could have imagined. /Jareth/Sarah, inclusion of OC Sharon Williams.


"You seen that Williams girl around lately?" The question dropped like a stone in a pond, causing a ripple of murmurings and rumors to erupt in the small town. It was a casual question, not even worth the effort to ask, yet the story that was passed around continued to ripen and finally became the town's newest, juiciest piece of gossip.

The premise was that the girl had gone down to the old dance hall on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and hadn't been seen since. It was only a 2 day absence, but in the snugness of the community, that absence was felt like a gaping hollow.

But still it was only whispered when no one was looking, shared only with the closest and most loyal of confidants. Everyone knew the Williams family. Well to-do, and friendly when they were out. But there had been strange happenings with that family since anyone could remember. No one wanted to cause more than ripples when it came to _that_ family.

Finally, someone dropped more than a stone in the small pond that was the town.

"You seen Sarah today, Mrs. Phelps?" The question was asked innocently, but it nearly killed little Mrs. Phelps as she vacated her seat at the small diner in the middle of town.

"Sarah? You mean Sarah Williams?" Mrs. Phelps mumbled, twiddling her gnarled thumbs like a guilty child.

"There any other Sarah in town?" The reply came from a young woman leaning on the table. She had short brown hair that framed her face, and she wore a pretty blue dress with a pair of well-worn leather boots.

"I don't know. I'm too old to be keeping up with all you William children." Mrs. Phelps huffed, pulling her large, antique purse onto her lap, fiddling through it to keep her eyes away from the woman's penetrating gaze. The woman leaned closer, her green-blue eyes piercing and calm.

"Surely you haven't forgotten my own sister, Mrs. Phelps? She's not easily forgotten, not in this town."

"No, I suppose not."

The young woman sat down across from the old one, who continued to rifle through her purse, searching for something she knew wasn't there.

"So, you sure you haven't seen Sarah around today, Mrs. Phelps?" The woman purred, propping her chin on her palm.

Mrs. Phelps licked her lips with a thick tongue, staring back at the striking young woman with a mixture of disgust and guilt. She finally set her purse down beside her, giving a loud "hmph!" as she did so.

"You always were a direct little whelp. Your sister was much sweeter."

"Sarah believed in goblins and fairies, said they flew around in the garden, drinking dew and munching on the tulips. Sarah was the dreamer. I was the practical one."

"So you say. But you mark my words Sharon, you could use a few dreams in that clockwork cog n' wheels head of yours."

Sharon shrugged, smiling widely. "I'd rather live in my dull, gray world than whatever it was Sarah was living in." Mrs. Phelps snorted, reaching out a gnarled claw for her cup of sweet tea.

Sharon waited as the old woman drank a few greedy gulps of the tea, sitting and eying Mrs. Phelps like a panther examines prey. When Mrs. Phelps had finally drunk half the glass, Sharon straightened up, and asked the question again.

"So, have you seen Sarah?"

"No. Nobody's seen her for days. Miss Grahms says she saw her down at the old dance hall outside of town with somebody. Since then, nobody's seen her."

"I think you know a little more than that, don't you? Why don't you tell me the little story that's being passed around town, Mrs. Phelps?" Sharon replied, taking her long, pale fingers and bending a straw as she spoke.

Mrs. Phelps gave a huff of indignation, and finally leaned back. "Fine. But I heard from everyone else, you hear? It's just a story, nothin' more. In my opinion, I think Sarah finally jus' got fed up with this place, and left. None of this silly hocus pocus everyone's whispering about.

"Well, like I said, Miss Grahms was driving back into town, and when she passed the dance hall, she said she saw Sarah down there, wearing not a thing but that pretty white dress your mama gave her for her birthday. No shoes, no sweater, nothing but that dress and her underclothes, Miss Grahms said. So she slows down to see what Sarah's doing do far out of town, with that pretty dress on.

"So she slowed down alright, and she saw that Sarah was talking to this strange man in a long black coat. Miss Grahms said he was the strangest man she ever did see! Long, blond hair that was all fluffed up around his head like a lion's mane, with but then also reaching down to his shoulders, with bright blue streaks in it, she said. Thought he was one of them city punks, bothering Sarah. So she stopped the car, and turned off the engine to hear what they were talking about.

"Miss Grahms heard Sarah address him, and said he had some strange name, Jareth or Jared, something like that. And she said Sarah was asking him if he wanted to dance, seein' as he was just sitting there at the dance hall. So the man laughs, and he says, that he's waitin' for somebody. And Sarah, she asks him who he could possibly be waitin' for. And that man, he says, 'I'm waitin' for _you_, Sarah.'

"By now Miss Grahms thinks this man is one of them predators, you know, the men that take girls, and she pulls out that little portable phone thingy, whatsit…"

"A cell phone?" Sharon suggested, lacing her fingers together.

Mrs. Phelps nodded, licking her lips again. "Yeah, one of them. Well, she's about to dial in to the police, when she says the man looks over at _her_, and she just stops cold. Said the man had the most frightening eyes, one brown, one blue. And they was like a cat's eyes she said. So, while Miss Grahms is practically frozen with fright, that man suddenly took his hands out of his coat's pockets, and he took Sarah by the shoulders, and he kissed her, right there, with Miss Grahms watching! Well, Sarah didn't take too kindly to that, so she started kickin' and screechin' like a wildcat, when the man suddenly just pulls her to him, and they were just gone, like they melted into the air."

Sharon leaned forward, her brows furrowed. "What do you mean, 'melted into the air'? They were just gone, like that?" She snapped her fingers on the word 'that'.

"That's what Miss Grahms said. Said her heart nearly stopped, thought she had imagined the whole thing. But then when she went out to where Sarah and that man had been, she saw that Sarah's play book, you know, that one she always carried around, _Labryinth_, was lyin' on the ground next to some big white feathers. She jus' left them there, in case your folks decided to call in those special city police. Didn't want to disturb the evidence."

"I see. And what did Sarah say the man's name was again?"

"Oh, I don't know. Jareth, Jared, something along those lines."

Sharon stood up from the table, smiling warmly down at Mrs. Phelps. "Thank you very much ma'am. It was nice to talk to you again." She left in a hurry, leaving Mrs. Phelps to finish her tea in peace.

Sharon started up her beat up old Volkswagen bug, pushing the stick shift into first gear, and rumbling down the road towards old dance hall. The drive was relatively short, but the whole time Sharon could only think of her sister, and the strange man's name. _Jareth…_It sounded so familiar, yet she couldn't place where she's heard it before.

The dance hall was little more than a large, scuffed dance floor with a dilapidated stage where the band used to play, and a few broken chairs and tables. Sharon exited from her car to the center of the dance floor, where she saw the little red book that Sarah had carried around since she was fifteen. The leather cover read _Labryinth_, just as Mrs. Phelps had said. And there were several large, white feathers around the book, stirred by the soft summer winds, but not enough that they'd blown away from the book.

She picked up a feather and examined it, only to recognize it as a barn owl's primary feathers, with the creamy brown down feathers still attached to the primary. She picked up the book, and leafed through the worn pages. Marked on the first page in Sarah's cramped scrawl was a character list. She scanned it, and nearly dropped the book when she saw what was printed there.

~Characters~

Sarah, the heroine

Hoggle, the dwarf

Ludo, the beast

Sir Didymus, the knight

Jareth, the goblin king

Sharon, the sister of Sarah

Sharon closed the book, her mouth dry. She remembered where she had heard the name before, now. When she and Sarah had just turned fifteen, Sarah had been determined to become an actress, living her life on the stage. To encourage her dream, their parents had bought her a trunk full of costumes, props and play books. And while they had included a collection of Shakespeare's plays, and other popular shows, the one that Sarah had loved the most was the fantastical story within the small, leather bound book Sharon held now.

And Sarah had spoken at great length about the play's antagonist, a gloating and handsome king, who had fallen in love with the heroine, and who stole the girl away to be queen over his labyrinth.

Sarah had talked about him like one talked about a lover. But Sharon had ignored her, had ignored the tales that Sarah had spun about herself and the King of Goblins, ignored the particular story about her being spirited away, and navigating such a maze…only to return with nobody noticing her disappearance. Sharon held back a sob as she realized that her sister was once again spirited away, once again playing a part in the story already written for her. Except this time, she hadn't returned.

"Jareth again, Sarah…?"


End file.
